Computing and people who work with computers are not the nerdy and negative images often portrayed in the media. As a computer scientist, educator and project evaluator with my hands and feet in many fields I live these realities every day. I am like the kid who never stops asking “why?” In this blog, I share my questions and curiosity about the interdisciplinary role of computing with a special concern for how computing can make the world a better place.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

As promised, this post contains a listing, with links, to the education options I presented at this evening's San Diego UX Speakeasy meetup. (More on the meetup itself in the next post)

There is an enormous selection of education and training options out there and this is only a small sampling; enough to give you some ideas and get you started. Not listed here for the most part are conferences, because although conferences often have educational activities and workshops, conferences were covered by my esteemed colleague Bennett King and a cohort of other enthusiastic people.

Minus the pithy commentary that was included in the live version, here are those links:

Interaction Design Foundation - Open Education Materials ; included here is the “Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction”, comprised
of 40 “textbooks”. Lots of very interesting in depth
reading here. Other good stuff as well on their site.The UX Bookmark - UX books, videos. Awesome resources with in-depth info. Well maintained.User Interface Engineering (UIE) - Virtual Seminars, Mobile Immersion, UI18 On Demand. Something for every level of engagement.Cooper - A design and consulting firm. They have "Cooper U" offering in person courses, and also UX Boot Camp (this is the one I'd really like to attend! in my mind I'm already writing the blog post about it!)Adaptive Path - another consultancy. Offerings include UX Week, an annual conference, and UX Intensive, a 4 day workshop held in various places around the globe.Neilsen Norman Group - another consultancy. Offerings include Usability Weeks (one of which will be held here in San Diego next month) and a 3 day Usability Camp.

General Assembly - A training organization with branches in several cities. Set up to resemble in some ways an academic environment. Offerings include one day events such as a hackathon, & several months long classes.Here is the Los Angeles branch.Open2Study - Free online courses. Based out of Australia, profs are global. Wide offerings including some interesting UX courses and psychology (a hot topic in some UX circles).Udacity - one of the famous MOOCs. Offerings across the spectrum of fields from the arts to engineering. Offerings include Computer Science, computing applications (such as web dev't and mobile and design)Coursera - another of the famous MOOCs. Mission statement talks about providing equal access to education; they have the most demographically diverse team of technical people of all the education sites I surveyed for this presentation. Offerings include Computer Science, engineering, data/stats, programming, HCI, lots of business courses (entrepreneurship, management, marketing etc)HackDesign - an interesting self described "experiment" for developers who want to learn design. Self-paced course that comes to your inbox.Online User Experience Institute- lots of UX courses. Has been around quite a while compared to its competitors. The Stanford Design ("d") School. If you really want to go for it and get a degree. They also offer individual classes, and an interesting 90 minute crash course for pairs.

Did I miss one of your favorites? If you have a listing you'd like added, send it!

I recommend Human Factors International, a great educational resource. Their courses are compact and comprehensive, and they offer certifications as well: http://www.humanfactors.com/home/usability.asp

The blog header is very much "me", however you can see more formal information about my evaluation & assessment work at www.lisakacz.com . You might also like my book: "Computers and Society - Computing For Good" (CRC Press 2012) www.computers-and-society.com